Two Rivers City Manager, right, speaking last summer at a Mariners Trail anniversary event, makes about a third more than Manitowoc Mayor Justin Nickels, left. / HTR Media file photo

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HTR Media

MANITOWOC — Two Rivers City Manager Greg Buckley and Manitowoc Mayor Justin Nickels work in city halls about six miles apart.

Buckley leads a city with one-third the population but his 2012 base salary of $100,000 is $25,000 more than Nickels who leads a municipal workforce twice as big.

Today, the Gannett Wisconsin Media Investigative Team and HTR Media present another installment of “What We Pay — Your Tax Dollars and the Salaries They Support” with the focus on city employees.

While the detailed listings of personnel and salaries present how much these public sector workers are paid, HTR Media sought to discover factors influencing pay and benefits in taxpayer-supported positions.

What explains the discrepancy between Buckley and Nickels’ pay while the two cities fire and police chiefs are paid almost the same even though the 2010 U.S. census shows Manitowoc with 33,345 residents and Two Rivers with 11,712?

Interviews with Buckley and Nickels, as well as elected council members and other civic officials, included discussion of comparables, internal equity, local conditions, workforce reductions and how new state laws are affecting pay and benefits.

Different qualifications

Council members from both cities said it’s not accurate to say a mayor and city manager are in equivalent positions, even though both serve as the chief executives of their communities.

To be a mayor of a Wisconsin city, all one has to be is 18 or older, have lived in the city for 10 days or more, and have not done anything — typically committed a felony — that has taken away the right to vote.

“We set the mayor’s pay ... individuals can choose to run or not run,” said Chris Able, a school teacher and Manitowoc alderman on the council that recently set the pay beginning in April for the mayor at $73,043 and frozen for the following three years.

Nickels, 26, is seeking election to a second four-year term in April. His opponent is Tony Burgarino, owner of Tony’s Pizza.

Nickels first served on the City Council as a teenager and became one of the nation’s youngest mayors in 2009. He is pursuing his bachelor’s degree online, with a major in political science, from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and is some 24 credits short of graduation.

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In looking at the pay of other mayors in Wisconsin, Manitowoc’s compensation is similar to other cities with 25,000 to 100,000 residents including Stevens Point, Wausau, Greenfield and Kenosha.

Racine, with twice the population, pays its mayor less than Manitowoc while Neenah, with about 10,000 fewer residents, pays about $5,000 more.

Nickels leads a city with about 245 employees, down from more than 300 two years ago. He supervises a budget more than twice as large as Two Rivers.

As a city-wide elected official, Nickels said, “I am directly responsible to the citizens ... 34,000 of them. Two Rivers’ city manager is responsible to nine.”

Indeed, Buckley, 55, reports to Council President Lee Brocher, owner of Maretti’s Deli, and his eight fellow council members, elected at-large in Two Rivers.

Buckley has a master’s degree in public administration from Syracuse University and was hired by the Two Rivers council in 1995. He said an advanced degree is an expectation most Wisconsin city councils would have when hiring a manager for their municipality.

He is the only one of the city’s 118 employees, down from 140 several years ago, who is hired and can be fired by the council.

“With our form of government, the residents get a big bang for the buck ... our city manager wears multiple hats,” Brocher said, citing Buckley’s expertise intergovernmental relations experience helping the city secure state and federal funding for various infrastructure projects.

Competitive pay

In Manitowoc, Able said when it comes to Manitowoc’s recruitment of department directors, “We try to drive a hard bargain, typically come in at the low end of comparables.”

Civic officials from Manitowoc and other cities are able to learn what public works, finance, planning, police, fire, and other department directors are paid.

Able said Manitowoc department heads often don’t see much increase in salary during their tenure.

Most employees in both cities have had their pay frozen or minimal raises the last five years.

Internal equity

Manitowoc Police Chief Tony Dick’s salary was $91,562 while Joe Collins was paid $88,595 last year as the leader of Two Rivers law enforcement.

Manitowoc officials said their chiefs’ pay is comparable to cities with similar population and socioeconomic profile. They said it is difficult to compete with affluent Milwaukee or Madison surburbs or communities with higher home values and ability to generate more property tax dollars with the same mill rate.

Brocher and Buckley said just because their city has fewer residents doesn’t mean the services provided to citizens are different than in a larger city. Snow still needs to be plowed, police and fire calls made to protect life and property, and infrastructure maintained.

Then, there is the matter of internal equity, Buckley said, that explains why the two chiefs in his city are paid close to Manitowoc counterparts. He said the rank-and-file firefighters and police officers in Manitowoc are getting similar pay.

By the time a firefighter or police officer has risen through the ranks — or is recruited from the outside to the top position — how could the chiefs in the smaller city be paid substantially less, Buckley said. There still should be a sizeable pay differential compared to their troops, he said.

More flexibility

Manitowoc City Council President Jason Sladky said state legislation enacted in 2010 limiting most public sector employees bargaining abilities gives local officials more flexibility in terms of compensation and benefits.

Sladky said some Manitowoc employees have taken on more responsibilities, especially in the wake of positions eliminated, while others have fewer duties. Sladky said a comprehensive review of all job descriptions and personnel is needed.

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Able agrees and one of the assignments of Manitowoc’s new human resources generalist, Jeri Johnson, is to help develop appropriate compensation formulas and performance reviews.

The state legislation also has enabled city councils to require additional health insurance and retirement pension contributions from most employees, except police, fire and transit.

In Two Rivers, all city employees including police and fire — “protected services” personnel — pay 12.5 percent of their health insurance premiums.

Buckley said police and firefighters in his city also are getting 3 percent pay raises this year and next, as part of negotiations leading to them contributing to their Wisconsin Retirement System pensions, though at a lower level than non-protected services employees. They are picking up their full share of WRS contributions, as required by the new state law, which, in 2013, is 6.65 percent of their pay.

He continues to believe exemption of police and firefighters from mandatory WRS contributions “may be good politics but not good policy and not in the best interest of taxpayers ... not as much money can be saved.”

City of Manitowoc firefighters also have signed a labor contract requiring them to make escalating WRS contributions and pay the same 12.5 percent of health insurance premiums as non-protected service employees. They received a 2 percent wage increase in 2013 and will get another 2 pecent hike in 2014.

City of Manitowoc police officers pay 10 percent of their health insurance premiums and have not agreed, in contrast to firefighters, to contribute to their WRS pensions.

Jim Brey, the senior Manitowoc alderman in office since 1992, said another benefit of the state legislation drawing massive public union protests is that municipal officials can take into account local economic considerations when setting pay and benefits.

The city of Manitowoc historically has had a higher unemployment rate than the statewide average with a median household income lower than the state as a whole.

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New Wisconsin law also has enabled city officials to change work rules, including what factors trigger overtime, and seniority is not the exclusive factor in determining assignments and who gets laid off when personnel cuts are implemented.

Brocher and Dave Buss, finance director in Two Rivers, said local economic conditions including revenue available may affect how many employees are retained by the city. Brocher said if salary and benefit adjustments and concessions hadn’t been made in the past several years, layoffs may have been necessary.

'Diminishing attractiveness'

No law prevents the Manitowoc or Two Rivers councils from eliminating health insurance coverage for municipal workers’ spouses who have access to coverage with their employers, or imposing a surcharge as some private sector employers now require.

Brocher said he didn’t consider it “excessive” for Two Rivers to provide health insurance coverage for city workers’ family members.

“If you do that you’re diminishing your attractiveness to any future employees and influencing the morale of current employees,” Buss said.

But what may change in Two Rivers is the number of sick leave days granted annually and how much can be accrued. Buckley noted his employees still get 12 days per year with accrual to either 960 or 640 hours, depending on payout option chosen at time of hire.

The Manitowoc council has altered its sick leave policy, restricting future accrual and creating a paid time off system that includes time that previously would have been called vacation days. This bank of days is tapped into when employees are out with longer illnesses.

Quality of life

Brey said a reality of the dramatic changes in the public sector from January 2011 is a “morale that has been down but leveling off.”

But Manitowoc is still a good employer, city officials said. “They will be appreciated for what they do ... they can be a leader here and step out from the crowd,” Sladky said.

“It is a place for people to work for that have vision and initiative,” Able said.

Nickels said he touts to prospective new city workers the overall quality of life, local schools, “the beauty of living on the lake. I sell them on other things than just pay ... I would argue it is a good place to work.”